Gross Violations of Ethical Duty Rampant at Philadelphia Board of Public Health

Back in December 2021, two days before Christmas, the Philadelphia Board of Public Health held a public meeting, via Zoom, to invite comment on the proposed “Emergency Regulation Governing the Control and Prevention of COVID-19 Mandating Vaccines for Individuals Working and Dining at Indoor Dining Locations”.  At this meeting members of the public asked if the supplement vitamin D might be an alternate effective strategy.

The science behind the use of vitamin D to prevent and heal respiratory illness was pretty well established at the time including the use of this safe supplement to prevent hospitalization and death from Covid-19.  More importantly people who are most likely to suffer from a deficiency of vit. D are people who’s skin shade is dark.  Over half of Philadelphians fall into this group.

Dr. Bettigole, Commissioner of Public Health, was chosen by Mayor Kenney because she had been labeled someone committed to fighting racial inequities that underpins poor health outcome in people of color.  Least we forget Bettigole replaced Thomas Farley who resigned in shame due to his ordering of the destruction of children’s remains which were the result of another catastrophic blunder by the city, the 1985 MOVE bombing and fire.

It appears that Bettigole’s commitment to suppressing life saving information about vitamin D from the people who needed it most must be acknowledged as a gross ethical violation.  Furthermore, because of her previous statements demonstrating significant concern for people of color, one needs to recognize this failure as a gross violation of her oath to protect the segment of the population she identified as most at risk.

Question by registered nurse Linda Toscano and reply, in bold, by Board of Health.

The link the Dept. of Health provides to the Mayo Clinic actually says they believe vit. D might be beneficial and that doctors think a deficiency may raise your risks from Covid-19.  Not exactly a dismissal but a call to look more carefully which this health agency obviously didn’t want to do for reasons that must be accounted for.

National Institutes of Health continues to maintain a stand offish neutral stance on vitamin D saying “There is insufficient evidence for the Panel to recommend either for or against the use of vitamin D for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19”.  However, the NIH published a paper last month that throws significant doubt on that statement.  Their meta analysis demonstrates a 50% decrease in death for patients hospitalized for Covid-19.  This is an incredible find since these were vit. D deficient patients who were saved by an intervention with high dose vit. D.   One can reliably speculated most would have never needed to go to the hospital if they had been taking this safe supplement prior to becoming sick.

For more detail on this study please see Chris Martenson’s excellent summation below.

Vitamin D could have been amply supplied to all Philadelphians from the start and for the duration of the crisis for a few tens of thousands of dollars.  Toxicity requires consumption of many bottle amounts and is extremely unlikely.  Some doses in the studies the NIH cites were 100,000 units 20 times what is recommended for prevention.   Dr. Bettigole suppressed information about vit. D that it should have known would be beneficial and instead Dr. Bettigole pleaded with the city to get vaccinated.

Bettigole and the Dept. of Public health intensely targeted black residents making sure everyone knew they were at higher risk from Covid-19.  A good part of what produces this higher risk is vit D deficiency.  The pattern of gross ethics violations that we saw concerning the castigation of vit D is repeated with the Covid-19 shots.  The same December report stated that the Covid-19 vaccines are extremely safe and effective.  This very bold statement must have been know to be false at the time and was clearly meant to deceive the public.

Philadelphia City Council has a duty to review and sanction these deadly violations of the public’s trust if there is any hope in the future of restoring the reputation of this city’s health authority.

Was Dr. Bettigole and the Dept. of Public Health acting on behalf of the public or did they find themselves flush with millions of CDC dollars designated for the marketing and distributing of patented and experimental drugs which in turn made some individuals and companies billionaires many times over while thousands of Philadelphians are suffering from potentially life threatening and life long adverse reactions and ultimately have no protection from Sars-CoV-2 infections or any recourse for liability.